Grady saw Laurel go white around the lips and his own heart gave a disconcerting squeeze. Had Mac and Tonya quarrelled about Tonya catching Laurel with Mac’s letter? Tonya making a snap decision to stay with her sister was weird. He knew she’d have about an hour’s drive to and from work.

‘Let’s break for biccies and hot chocolate,’ he suggested, as much to give himself a moment to recover as anything. He managed to give Laurel’s hand a squeeze and she returned the ghost of a smile.

Soon after five, Tess arrived in a renewed flurry of apologies, clasping her hands in delight before the snowy scene they’d created. ‘That’s fantastic. I’ll get straight on with the sleigh. Let’s Christmas this up!’

Soon a sleigh was dashing across the snow, Father and Mother Christmas holding onto their hats as the reindeers laid back their ears and galloped. The teens either painted heaps of gifts or populated the slopes with skiers and snowboarders wearing Santa hats. Grady added bright red lights and baubles to the snow-laden branches of the fir trees that encircled the lake, only breaking for the pizza delivery and two enormous bottles of cherry cola, which Daisy, Zuzanna and Niall had clamoured for but Grady thought tasted like cough sweets.

Then Laurel began to paint two ice skaters in the centre of the lake and everyone paused to watch the figures emerge from the end of her clever brush, a man and a woman clasping hands and staring into each other’s eyes from beneath colourful hats. It’s was amazing how Laurel managed to capture them in so few strokes, skates poised mid-stride, the impression of movement complete when she used the end of her brush to scratch in the marks their blades were leaving behind on the ice. Details emerged – a bobble on the woman’s blue hat and the distant snow-topped chalets behind the lake. Then, in the same style he’d admired in the paintings Daisy had shown him online, she created a floral explosion of green and white above the skating couple. It took him a moment to realise that the whirling leaves and berries were mistletoe.

He almost expected the newly painted couple to close up to one another and kiss.

‘That’s awesome,’ Zuzanna breathed.

Laurel laid down her brush, laughing when everyone burst into applause. Clapping along with the others, Grady wondered if he was the only one to notice that the man’s hair peeping from beneath the beanie was black, like his, while the woman’s longer hair was a dark auburn. Like Laurel’s.

He caught her eye meaningfully and she grinned and blushed. His heart squeezed again, but this time in pleasure.